{"id":56511,"date":"2023-02-15T11:49:41","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T19:49:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=56511"},"modified":"2023-02-15T11:49:41","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T19:49:41","slug":"fears-of-a-return-to-chinese-exclusion-act-as-us-china-tensions-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=56511","title":{"rendered":"Fears of a Return to Chinese Exclusion Act as US-China Tensions Rise"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Rong Xiaoqing<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Chinese living in the US are watching the deterioration of US-China relations with a mix of fear and, for some, cautious optimism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On the morning of Feb 3, Charlotte Zhang turned on the news, part of a regular routine she shares with her seven-year-old daughter, Lydia to count the minutes before school. But that morning\u2019s headlines would serve as more than a timekeeper for the pair.<\/p>\n

That was the day news broke of the Chinese spy balloon over US skies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese days the news is full of wars and gunshots. Lydia is used to it,\u201d said Zhang. \u201cBut when she heard the word \u2018China\u2019, she raised her head to look at me. I said, \u2018Uh-oh, your grandparents may not be able to come any more,\u2019 and she screamed, \u2018Oh, no!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Zhang\u2019s parents live in Beijing and were planning to come to New York to visit the family in April. While the Covid pandemic put a halt to direct flights between the two countries, the family had hoped that a pending visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing would change that.<\/p>\n

News of the balloon\u2014and the subsequent cancelation of Blinken\u2019s trip\u2014quickly dashed those hopes.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor seniors who don\u2019t speak English, transferring is very difficult,\u201d said Zhang, who hasn\u2019t seen her parents for more than three years. \u201cWe finally saw some hope for direct flights, and who\u2019d have thought a balloon could smash it overnight?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018It could be very dangerous\u2019<\/h2>\n

The Chinese surveillance balloon, which had been traversing U.S. airspace for about a week until it was shot down on Feb. 4, has brought already frosty U.S.-China relations to a new low. With the House of Representatives\u2019\u00a0passage of a resolution<\/a>\u00a0condemning China over the incident last Thursday and Beijing responding\u00a0in a harsher tone<\/a>, the tensions don\u2019t seem to be easing any time soon.<\/p>\n

Chinese immigrants in New York, meanwhile, are bracing themselves for an even bumpier future.<\/p>\n

Shaohua Yu is a craft vendor in Manhattan\u2019s Chinatown. Recalling the wave of anti-Chinese hostility sparked by the rhetoric of former President Trump\u2014who routinely referred to Covid as \u201cthe China virus\u201d\u2014he said he\u2019s yet to see the same kind of public response to the balloon incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one mentioned the balloon just yet,\u201d Yu said, adding that during the pandemic he had been subjected on several occasions to verbal insults from passengers on the subway. Combined with news of attacks targeting Asian Americans, it was enough to keep him indoors and out of harm\u2019s way. So far, he says, the tourists frequenting his stand have been friendly.<\/p>\n

But with tensions between the world\u2019s two superpowers rising, many in the community fear a reversion to policies from a century earlier, when Chinese immigration to the US was curtailed in what many now agree was an act of xenophobia and racism directed at Chinese immigrants.<\/p>\n

At the federal level the Biden administration has taken dramatic steps to limit Chinese companies\u2019 access to critical technology. In states like Texas, lawmakers are considering bills to limit the ability of Chinese nationals to purchase property in the U.S. on national security grounds. All of this is happening amid the backdrop of intensifying anti-espionage operations targeting Chinese in the US.<\/p>\n

Users on WeChat, a social media platform popular among Chinese, warn that a new Chinese Exclusion Act could soon be enacted.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far, the balloon thing and the real estate bills are only soundbites from American politicians. But once the fervent nationalism among ordinary Americans is awakened, it could be very dangerous,\u201d said Yu. \u201cOrdinary people cannot do anything to the Chinese government, but they can vent their anger on Chinese Americans like us.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Taiwan and bilateral trade ties<\/h2>\n

For some, the ramifications of US-China tensions are already being felt.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo I worry about the balloon incident? Yes. But I worry more about House Speaker Kevin McCarthy\u2019s trip to Taiwan,\u201d said Ronggang Bao, who works for the United States Postal Service and is also a senior advisor to a Chinese community organization.<\/p>\n

McCarthy has vowed to visit Taiwan and is expected to fulfill the promise soon, although a date hasn\u2019t been set. Bao believes the reaction from China will be significantly stronger than the response following former Speaker Nancy Pelosi\u2019s visit last year to the island, which Beijing considers its own.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would set off a new round of animosity between the two countries and make the lives of Chinese in the U.S. tougher,\u201d Bao said, adding many are already living in fear.<\/p>\n

In recent years, Bao has helped international students from China file reports to the police after they lost large amounts of money to scammers who pretended to represent U.S. authorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked the students why they fell into such obvious traps so easily,\u201d said Bao. \u201cThey told me that the China-U.S. relationship is so bad that they worried they could be deported for any reason before finishing their studies, so they\u2019d preferred to pay the money to resolve a problem that didn\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the picture appears grim, some see signs for optimism in bi-lateral trade ties, which reached a record high of $690 billion in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two countries both know economic decoupling is impossible,\u201d said David Lin, a realtor. Lin, who focuses on properties in affluent neighborhoods on Long Island, said the number of his clients from China has not dropped compared to before the pandemic. \u201cWhat you hear in the news is all political rhetoric,\u201d said Lin. \u201cThe bill in Texas won\u2019t pass, and even if it does, believe me, Chinese citizens can still find loopholes to buy houses.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even from an economic perspective, the frequent bickering between China and the U.S. has hit some people hard. \u201cWhen I learned about the balloon incident, my first reaction was: My stocks!\u201d said Yiping Wu, who works in financial services. The Chinese stocks Wu owned dropped on the news of the balloon.<\/p>\n

Wu said he still thinks Chinese stocks have potential, but he is wary of the uncertainty surrounding the future of the two countries. \u201cInvestors hate uncertainties,\u201d said Wu. \u201cNow we think the China-U.S. relationship will be uncertain, or getting worse, in the next five or maybe ten years at least.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maintaining Chinese identity<\/h2>\n

Even if the situation continues to deteriorate, Yu, the vendor, said there is nothing he can do but endure the situation. \u201cI\u2019ve been in the U.S. for more than 20 years. My house in China was demolished and my parents have passed away,\u201d said Yu, 60. \u201cI have nowhere else to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

And for Zhang, among all the uncertainties, there is one thing she has determined. \u201cI have no control of whether the future will be brighter,\u201d said Zhang. \u201cBut no matter how prevalent anti-China sentiment is, I want my daughter to be proud of her Chinese identity and maintain her Chinese roots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Image via\u00a0Flickr<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ByRong Xiaoqing Feb 13, 2023 Chinese...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56512,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56511\/revisions\/56512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}